


last of the true believers

by tinytendril



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-20
Updated: 2019-10-07
Packaged: 2020-10-24 18:57:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20710916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinytendril/pseuds/tinytendril
Summary: Recent divorcée Margaery Tyrell strikes up an unexpected connection with dynasty politician Robb Stark. A collection of moments that follow their relationship through Robb’s campaigning season.





	1. I

**Author's Note:**

> AN: Modern AUs are a great thing, especially when Robb, Margaery, and socialite society are involved. I imagine Robb is slightly different from his canon personality in that he enjoys politics more, and he’s a bit more aware of how to work within that world. Each part will have a shifting between of Margaery and Robb’s POV.

_ **MARGAERY**_

Petyr Baelish is fast approaching, yet Margaery is not bothered to move. There are important people at this fundraiser event and she knows what eyes have not left her since she arrived tonight. 

'Good evening, Mrs. Lannister.' He knows he has not technically misspoken, since her month-long estrangement to her husband does not let her change her name back on paper, but the purposeful greeting comes with a distasteful smile nonetheless.

When she does not counter him, and takes her time to even address him, he continues, 'Have you come alone tonight, I wonder how Joffrey is keeping busy without your winsome company?' 

Margaery only swivels slightly in her barstool, where she has been nursing a martini in an idle grasp. She smiles graciously to the bartender who brings her another before she fully faces him to say, 'I know that marriage is a mystery to you, Mayor Baelish. But I would be the wrong person to teach you of the inner workings of what transpires between a man and woman in marriage or _divorce_.'

He bows his head, though the smile does not waver, as if he expected her sharp-tongued response. 

As if to drive her point across, she pulls him into a cordial embrace when he tries to depart with a kiss to her hand. She whispers near his ear, 'I do not expect you to be sympathetic, but I do expect some level of intellect in the man who has gained his position with a substantial amount of Tyrell investment.' When she releases him, she smiles prettily for a cameraman who wants to take their picture, and between flashes she adds, 'You were a car salesman when my family found you. Tread lightly.'

If he were affected by her words, she might have blinked and missed something flash across his gaze, but he does not say. Instead, he leaves her with, 'Always a pleasure, Margaery.' 

When she attempts to return to her solitude with her cocktail, she notices a pair of bright, blue eyes staring at her across the bar. They are striking not just because they belong to a handsome young man, but that they do not seem bothered by her catching him, and more so because they do not stray. However, he is eventually distracted by the same photographer that had accosted her, and she goes back to her drink with the kind of fervour that only a person desperate to be ignored would display. 

Later, when she deems it a considerable amount of time to be seen by the press as handling her pending divorce with Joffrey and the Lannisters with grace, those same eyes find her again. This time, however, their owner comes to sit with her before she can leave. Up close, his russet red curls in his hair and the groomed beard that he keeps short to frame his face seem familiar as if she's met someone sharing his resemblance before. 

Before he can interrupt her internal observations, she tells him, 'My grandmother has warned me against accepting drinks from strange men.'

He laughs with a very appealing rumble before he responds in a Northern accent to match some ideas she has of who he is. 'Could I offer you some friendly advice instead?'

'How kind,' Margaery does not want to bite on the offer, but she smiles because she's sure she has solved the puzzle of her connection to him. 'I don't expect anything less from Catelyn Stark's son.'

He dips his head low to seemingly hide another laugh, and yet she's certain that he's not as bashful as he appears. In fact, he holds himself with the kind of easy confidence that only a man of his privileged upbringing could. 

'I came here with the intention to warn you about the man you were speaking to,’ he tells her, appearing sheepish to continue in the face of a growing amusement in her smile. ‘He and his dealings with my mother and my family have always troubled me...but something tells me you might already have that handled.' 

'You flatter me, Mr. Stark.'

‘It's Robb.'

'I know, everyone at this fundraiser supporting your bid for the Northern cabinet seat for the upcoming election knows that,' she says, and her smile turns impish. 'And it is still Mrs. Lan—Ms. Tyrell to you.' 

‘It suits you, Ms. Tyrell.’

Admittedly, she hadn’t meant to keep company at all when she arrived at this party, but he is keeping up with her, and she can’t stop herself from coaxing more warm smiles from him. In fact, now, there is something tugging at his lips as he observes her as if he can't quite understand her as easily as he had hoped. It might very well be the first time this kind of interaction has not come easily to him, if she's not mistaken. 

'I was hoping to be of better use to you,' he says as he rises from his seat, with an outstretched hand.

She shakes it firmly, 'Please do keep endeavouring to, Robb.'

* * *

The adverts that keep looping on the television do Northern MP candidate Robb Stark many favours. It highlights the inherent right to this position from his father’s long-standing legacy as Secretary State of the North. It highlights his track record of voting for well-favoured laws that even her grandmother, who staunchly supports opposing Southern political views, has taken an interest in without a trace of sarcasm. What she doesn’t see highlighted is a negative take on his own cousin, Jon Snow, running for the same seat. She rationalizes that she’s used to that kind of underhandedness from her estranged husband’s dealings. 

Joffrey and the adverts he’s run on Sam Tarly were a key in him gaining followers three years ago. She remembers simply wrinkling her nose, dutifully agreeing to approve of exposing unflattering photos of the portly politician sloppily canoodling with his girlfriend to juxtapose against a golden image of Joffrey holding babies and helping the elderly.

As the inspirational music swells for her fourth viewing of the advert, and the cut of Robb Stark’s newly shaven jaw is again highlighted on the screen above her, she is still following the curves of his jawline when she almost misses the comment directed at her.

‘I was told the beard makes me look distrustful,’ Robb Stark, the man instead of the looping image on the screen, tells her.

She holds her attaché flush against her side and stands to greet him. She adjusts her pencil skirt as she wills herself to forget the contents of the documents she cradles close to her, and she remembers her grandmother’s lessons on assertion with practised ease. 

‘Somehow, I trust you less for confiding that you cannot make your own decisions,’ Margaery quips.

‘Are you always this discerning so early in the morning?’ Robb asks, grinning.

She almost forgets to laugh because she’s not sure how he had found her, sitting in the lobby of City Hall. Then again, she’s the one that has come to his likely familiar setting. 

He does look as though he belongs here, tailored and trim in his deep blue, three-piece suit. _ Another press conference_, she thinks of his pristine appearance and the slew of news reports she's seen alongside his adverts. 

He must think she is pondering his small joke too long because he clears his throat as if it is from nerves. Or, maybe he spots how she fidgets with the attaché pressing too tightly to her now, her grip loosening and tightening again. This, and what he says next, takes her by surprise. 

'Do you imagine people liking me better looking like a _ green _ boy?' 

Margaery almost snorts out in laughter, but perplexes instead, 'A what--'

'Sorry, it's my dad's funny, old Northern words coming out.’ He laughs with her. ‘I mean to ask--well--what do you think?'

She's not sure why Robb would want her opinion, considering her allegiances. Though speaking of her allegiances, she reminds herself of the documents under her arm that state the severing of said ties in name and marriage to Joffrey. She wagers Robb, and any other Westerosi, follows the news to understand her business here. 

_ Divorce rocks the Lannisters_, some papers read. Others seem to highlight her friendship, _ unnatural _they say, with Tomnen. 

If it comes to it, her grandmother's voice in her head tells her to deflect, _ focus on the other person instead. _ For Robb Stark, she thinks, it will not be so hard to do so.

'You do look younger,' she says carefully, and adds, 'but, I imagine you will win your election on other merits.'

_ Keep them on their toes_, grandmother’s words persistently weave through her thoughts. 

'Honesty, honour, loyal--' He begins as if he has stated this an innumerable amount of times in speeches and the like, but she interrupts.

'Tried and true, derivative, predictable.'

'Ouch.' Like any good politician, he appears on the defensive. But, he bends to what seems to be his way, forfeiting with a smile as a good sport. Except, when she thinks she can finally file her divorce papers and leave him with her lasting remarks, he breaks the good nature of his smile with his own appraisal as he eyes her, 'Striking in more ways than one...social climbing...dangerous.'

'Now I know, from now on, we will only be speaking truthfully to one another,' she says, surprised that her own offered smile is one she has not practiced before. 

This time, his eyes perceptibly fall to her clutching hands on her attaché, tightening their grasp for the umpteenth time since their chance meeting. The growing pairs of eyes that see them together does not quell any paranoia she has either. 

'As pleasurable as this has been,' she tries aloofness again, and states matter-of-factly, 'I'm afraid I have a schedule to keep, Robb.'

'I understand...' he starts, but can’t help to continue, ‘But, what I never understood is how Joffrey kept up with you in the first place.' 

'The reports on every stand in the city and news outlet online will say I never cared if we got on or not, but that I did it all for the money and notoriety. Though, now, I have a taste for younger men. Tommen is barely out of uni--'

'I don't follow _that _press, Ms. Tyrell. I tend to follow what I see in a person myself.'

His eyes, and the expression they hold that make them look so arrestingly open, make her falter for a moment before she clears her throat to say, 'My grandmother tells me, to know your opponents is to know how to win, which includes what they may be saying in the papers.'

His lighthearted laughter returns, and an outstretched hand too. She shakes when she takes his hand because he laughs to reply, 'You are right again. I could use that kind of edge on my campaign team. I suppose I have to keep trying to be of better use to you.'

'I will not forget it,' she nods, another smile splits her features too easily, and she tries to ignore the way her grandmother would be scoffing at this final exchange. 

_ Stop your blubbering, girl. _

* * *

She thought wearing her favourite slinky Dior dress would allow her to feel comfortable tonight. Or, remotely interested in her date across from her. Except, she is focusing on the bit of spinach he’s managed to splash across his otherwise spotless white, collared shirt. He’s talking about the new tech company he’s invested in, and she’ll have to apologize to Loras later for introducing the man, but she simply can’t focus. 

Renly Baratheon comes from a good family. He is polite and has not once been unkind to the waiting staff like so many of the men she’s dated in his corporate field have. He is handsome in a good-natured way, with the kind of boyish looks that remind her of someone from her childhood. He often brings up Loras in conversation, which she’s not unaccustomed to since they are so close in age and have similar taste in men, so she suspects a very split percentage in who Renly might actually be interested in. He’s lovely, and a welcome distraction from the newest headlines on the newsstands she’s positive have to do with Joffrey phoning in fabricated tips…

_ Joffrey: ‘She left, I’m heartbroken!’ Margaery Moving On Too Fast. Tyrell Siblings Share Lovers. _

But, what brings her to the ladies’ bathroom, primping nothing that needs primping, is nothing she can fully blame Renly for. Rather than dwelling on it, she easily thumbs through her contacts to find her recent contacts and waits.

‘They say I stand at 5’10”. I’m not saying that I’m offended, but that’s just lazy reporting.’ Robb Stark has grown more comfortable in dropping pretenses as of the last couple of weeks, when they had started exchanging texts and brief conversations about the mundanities of their day-to-day. 

‘How dare they forget the extra inch.’ 

‘I can’t say thank you for introducing me to the Daily Mirror. It has made me self-conscious more than anything else.’ 

‘At least, you aren’t incessantly and simultaneously asked about your diet regimen, praised for wearing ‘it’ better, berated for a fashion faux paux, and hounded for a quote said out of context in a single day.’

‘Very tragic, but I suspect being as beautiful and glamorous as you are has other perks.’

‘If I would just put my phone down once and again,’ she recalls his words and poorly imitates his accent, a touch thicker than it actually sounds.

‘You really do enjoy making me feel lesser, don’t you,’ he chuckles.

She half-expects him to mention or console her about the recent ramping up of trash writing about herself and her family. But, he doesn’t. As stubborn as his other attributes, he remains light and distracts her from the glaring problems her divorce, finally made official and publicized, has caused.

She decides that she is thankful, and says, ‘Is that the new Fall Tom Ford suit you were wearing at your sister’s birthday party? The paparazzi photographs do not do it much justice.’

‘It is, and thank you,’ he replies, and she hears some shuffling on the other end of his line. Maybe she imagines it, but there is also a distinct dulcet voice near him. Her mind flashes to Roslin Frey’s appearance next to him in most of the photographs at Sansa’s party. ‘I think--’

‘I am forgetting my manners, I am keeping someone waiting,’ she can’t seem to wait to say. She is not proud of it, but she does admit to herself that she had hoped that he’d be giving her his undivided attention. 

‘Ah,’ she knows she hears disappointment when he starts. ‘I wouldn’t want anyone missing you, Ms. Tyrell.’ 

She wrinkles her nose at this because she’s since given him permission to call her by her first name. ‘Robb…’

‘Goodnight, Margaery.’

‘Goodnight, Robb.’

** _tbc_ **


	2. II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A second instalment to this political/election themed AU, this time featuring Robb’s POV.

**ROBB**

Robb swiftly shuts his phone’s screen off as soon as his mother and father enter the dining room. He slips the phone into his jacket pocket and apologizes to the rest of his family as they filter through the room, staring at him with expectant gazes. One by one, he watches as they find their seats to join him for dinner. Arya smirks as she finds a seat next to him, Sansa looks up from her own phone, and even Bran and Rickon hurtle in from the back garden, with twigs and leaves stuck to their jumpers, though still taking in their brother’s appearance. Does he look startled, or different, or altogether strange?

‘Robb,’ Catelyn certainly sounds mildly surprised. ‘I wasn’t expecting you to be with us tonight. Have you cancelled any plans tonight?’ 

‘Glad you could join us, son,’ Ned says without misstepping, and gestures Catelyn to join him at the top of the long table, opposite of Robb, just in time for the butler to arrive with the first course of the evening.

He can tell that his mother is reining in some curiosity of his being here tonight since she’s been not-so-discreetly asking about Roslin Frey for the past few weeks. If his father hadn’t interrupted her so abruptly to congratulate him about the new grassroots efforts his campaign team has recently started, he’s sure she would’ve come to and ask sooner. But, he can count Sansa in helping at some point during dinner anyway. 

Sansa, as if on cue, bursts before he can touch wine glass to lips, ‘Is it true Robb?’

His sister elaborates when he can’t read her mind, ‘Margaery Tyrell.’

‘Joffrey’s estranged wife? What about her?’ Catelyn asks, bemused. 

‘Ex-wife,’ Robb corrects her automatically, and he warily locks eyes with his mother before watching their main courses arrive. 

‘She’s been seen with a few of Robb’s friends. They say she’s looking for a new boyfr--’

‘Where do you even find out about any of this, San?’ Arya rolls her eyes.

‘OK! Magazine, the Mirror, it’s all over social media as well,’ Sansa says as if she should know better.

Arya stares after her sister, laughing through her disbelief. ‘Don’t be so stupid. Those are rubbish--’ 

  
_ ‘Arya _,’ Catelyn warns her daughter.

‘Rumours come from some truth…’ Sansa shrugs, ignoring her sister pulling faces at her.

‘I’ve met her before. She is a very capable, charming young lady. I imagine her attention is widely sought after,’ Catelyn says, and Robb comes to find that she is eyeing him again. ‘What were you saying about her?’

Robb shrugs, schooling his features to simply reply, ‘I wasn’t. Sansa--’

Sansa continues as if all in one breath, ‘Is it true that you and Margaery are seeing each other? That’s the other story they’re running since you’ve been seen at that cafe together, a block from Downing Street, I think. Is that where you were headed tonight--er, or anywhere with her, I mean? Have plans changed? You hardly spend time with us anymore, you see. Just curious. Why are you here? Alone.’

Robb coughs a few times, regardless of the lack of food caught in his throat. Maybe he can try and pass off his surely flushed face because of this.

‘_ Sansa, _’ Catelyn warns with more exasperation.

Finally gathering himself, Robb calmly explains, ‘I’ve seen her for coffee. Once.’

‘Can we carry on with dinner without talking about all this _nonsense_?’ Bran begs the question, also appearing tiresome of the conversation. Rickon nods to this, whipping his shaggy-haired head up and down as if he thoroughly understands the situation.

‘Aye,’ Robb chimes in, and dramatically mimics Bran’s irritated gaze at his sisters. Bran is all too happy to giggle with his brother. Then, suddenly struck with remembrance, Robb says, ‘I got a chance to see the mock-up posters I commissioned you to draw for the elections. They’d look brilliant at your next football match.’ 

Bran triumphs with a mouthful of peas and mash as he mouths a sloppy, ‘Welcome!’ 

A little into dessert, when Arya and Sansa’s bickering has veered into a topic he’s pleased has nothing to do with him, and his father is gladly talking about things that have nothing to do with politics, he feels the vibrations of his phone signalling him of a text. 

He peeks inside his pocket to see Margaery’s name illuminated on his phone’s screen, and he realizes that she’s most likely gotten back from her weekend trip with Loras. He plans on asking her if his brother is coping with finally coming out to their family (before Joffrey gets the chance to first, as Margaery suspects this might be another slight he’s planning), and tries to think of how dedicated she is to her family instead of the idea of what a remote weekend getaway would be like with her (a reprieve from the cameras following their individual lives, and together). It is a fleeting idea, an idea that he knows would suit people in a well-defined relationship rather than their—well, he’s not quite sure how he’d define their flirtatious texts and single, midday coffee date last week. 

‘Robb, something the matter?’ Ned worries that he’s just repeated himself a few more times to his son. 

‘Just—’ He starts and stops to see how uncanny his mother’s look reminds him of the countless times she’s seen through any of his lies and stories. ‘Distracted, these days.’

Ned most likely assumes it has to do with his long nights in his campaigning office, clapping his hand on his son’s shoulder for silent reassurance.

‘I hope you figure out how to cope with your distractions,’ Catelyn plainly wishes him, but he does not miss the way she steals a conspiring look with his father. ‘But, even so, you seem content, a little less stressed, so you mustn’t be too unhappy about that.’

* * *

There is something about Margaery’s voice on the phone, quieter and cozier than she would be in public. It’s tone, a huskier one, makes him think she’s letting him in on a secretive thing.

When there’s shuffling on her end of the line, Robb tries to shake the thrill of other suggested intimacies he might have with her. He strikes the urge, the one that Margaery might find fun to coax out, to ask if she’s just about ready for the day. In other words, has she gotten out of bed, is she rustling through her bedsheets? Is she trying on outfits, curated to her precise taste for pastels and sleek lines of pencil skirts and long, tapered trousers?

He shakes his head and asks, ‘Am I being stood up, Marge? The reservation was for thirty minutes ago.’ 

Self-consciously, his eyes roam around the outdoor patio tables of the cafe where she's asked him to meet her. It’s not one of the lunch spots they’ve frequented for their past couple of day dates, so he double checks his text to match the exact address she gave him to his current location. 

Her laugh rumbles mischievously over the line, and it makes him wonder for a moment that she’s actually admitting guilt this way. Sometimes, their conversations are like this, her carrying on with her conspiring laughter and his quiet surrendering to it. 

He knows what his mother would say. He knows Sansa would be delirious to imagine the romance in it. His father, he hopes, would think he’s doing perfectly fine in keeping up with someone like Margaery. Ned has never spoken about it before, of how Mace Tyrell’s interchangeable ties to the North and the South could make anyone wary of Margaery’s family, but then he’s only spoken positively of his son’s character and judgement.

‘Do you think so little of me?’ She asks, and there is enough of a pause between them to make him think she’d like him to actually consider her question.

‘If anyone would be so stupid to do that,’ he starts, then smiles to himself to mull over his words, ‘they’d likely find themselves stood up.’

There is a strange echo on his end of the line, and it makes him pull his phone away to check its settings. Rechecking the volume and asking her what the matter could be, he is puzzled to find there is only Margaery’s voice echoing this time, but before he can apologize, someone else’s slender hand stops him from lifting his phone up again. 

‘I couldn’t imagine anyone being played with this way and liking this kind of treatment.’ Margaery appears before him, loose blonde curls and red lips carefully in place as if she’d been ready for him all along. She spreads a lopsided grin he has come to know as an infectious one, one he tends to mirror too. Then, as she sits opposite him across the bistro table, she suggests, ‘Wouldn’t it be easier finding a never-married, Northern lass, a daughter of one of your father’s friends, to take out on a date?’

The comparison comes as if it can’t be helped. He can easily draw comparisons with his ex-girlfriend, Jeyne, against Margaery. Then, there’s his mother’s heeding, _ Kind, gentle Jeyne hadn’t been honest with you before. Would Margaery be honest with you? Do you trust her? _

‘The public polls seem to like me better being seen with someone ‘so well-matched’,’ he states as though it were a passing thought, and sips from the Americano he had ordered while waiting for her.

‘And I’m sure Catelyn, regardless of her reservations about my past, sees the appeal if we were to start officially dating before the elections in a month,’ she says evenly, and if she were showing any signs of surprise at the implications of them openly talking about dating this way, she does not show it. 

_ The girl is as clever as she is pretty, Robb, _ his mother’s voice comes to mind, unbidden again. The comparison that strikes him the most is that Jeyne was not nearly as clever. Ultimately, it was this that was Jeyne’s undoing, when he had found evidence of her family’s attempts to replace his candidacy for the Northern seat in parliament with Ramsay Bolton and her complicity to it all. If Margaery wanted to, at worst, exploit him somehow, he’s absolutely sure she’d easily accomplish it.

Robb’s intent staring from her comment can’t be held, and his taut lines soften into a smile as he notices the waiter coming to her side with a peculiar meal, one of which the waiter says is her usual order. Placed before Margaery on the bone china plate is a single slice of a flower-adorned, frosted cake. 

‘Ah,’ she coos before she slices through the white, spongy cake with her fork. She brings the morsel of food inches before her lips, looking at it as if it were a very precious thing. He can’t help but find it endearing. 

He must have let out a chuckle without realizing it because she peers at him before opening her mouth to savour her midday meal. ‘You know, if you really wanted to, you could have it all.’

‘I’ve not got a sweet tooth--’

‘Have your cake and eat it too. That’s what I think.’ Margaery looks at him meaningfully. 

‘I’m positive that’s not how that saying goes.’ He’s laughing fully now. ‘Is that really what you get for lunch here?’

‘Robb,’ she says, moving her fork so the piece of cake is in front of his mouth now. ‘Honestly, I sometimes find politics stimulating, but more often than not dry. Still, it’s beneficial that I practice how this world operates for the betterment of my family’s life, and my life. Considering that, I’d rather enjoy myself, find pleasure where I can find it, while we all claw for success. For instance, you could win the election as fairly as you’ve been campaigning for it, and all the while I could teach you to eat cake...with me.’

Her meaningful look finally becomes clear to him, and as if something so surprisingly reactive stokes in the pit of his stomach, he finds himself taking a mouthful of her offered cake.

* * *

Margaery kisses him first, unsurprisingly, and he half expects an audience if not a reporter to ambush their moment. Except, no one comes, and they are indeed alone where she had brought him behind the closed doors of his office. 

He wants to ask her if he should expect this kind of fervour in front of the inquiring minds of the Guardian, who have been working on a piece for him or the tabloid fair that he’s been avoiding since his sister’s interest had piqued about them. But, as he is backed up against his desk with his hair in disarray from both her hands tugging and carding through them, knocking over a few unknown stationery items from his attempts to anchor himself on the desk’s surface, he thinks that this isn’t exactly how the public should see their burgeoning relationship. 

Surprisingly, the way she allows a soft gasp to slip from their open-mouthed kisses, makes him think that this is just for them.

* * *

‘You were brilliant, you know,’ she says, her voice is breathy, her chin resting over his bare chest. 

He wants to smugly reply, proud of the fact that they didn’t make it past his penthouse foyer, tripping and stripping haphazardly, before they made love on the tile and their rumpled clothes. Then again, she did mock him for letting the words ‘made love’ slip out in an embarrassing revelation about his lack of intimacy for months since his election campaigning started. 

So, he backtracks to the French restaurant they had gone to hours ago, where he had given a quick interview for his stances on current events and their status as a dating couple to reporters he suspects Margaery had known prior to this _chance _meeting. The way she steered him here and there for the cameras to catch their flattering angles, and the way she tugged him closer for each flashing bulb, made him believe this to be true. 

‘Yes, well, the things I said—those beliefs—I mean every word.’ 

‘Honesty and loyalty, just like your father’s promises.’

‘Yes,’ he says with a heavy sigh. ‘Though, I’ve also learned that I pay a price every time I don’t pay my dues to those who support me, and keep a wary eye on those that claim to be loyal to me.’

‘The Boltons and Westerlings,’ she deduces. ‘I heard of them and how…’

‘Not all the Westerlings are to blame for aligning with them, but their coup almost cost me my chances to be elected,’ he explains when she can’t. He sobers to add, ‘And I forgive Jeyne, but I have to do right by what my family believes in, what I believe in.’

He continues when she only nods, ‘And now Walder Frey thinks the investments to my campaign will sway me into some archaic tradition of swapping money for an arranged marriage.’

Despite getting lost in memories, he is amused at what he assumes is her surprised admiration when she goads him on, ‘Tell us how you _ really _ feel, Mr. Stark.’

Not for the first time, Margaery has willed his mood to lift with a turn of a phrase and a look. 

‘I hardly felt the cameras on me tonight, all eyes were on you, really.’ He takes in the way they are entangled in bed, sheets doing little to drape over her still very naked body. It makes him impulsively kiss her where he remembered he had made her murmur incoherently, just above her collarbone where he had accidentally ripped a delicate necklace from her neckline. 

‘That’s what good breeding, the right marriage or the right PR team after a bad marriage, and the right price can grant you, darling. I suppose I can thank my father for all of that.’ Margaery couldn’t be saying all of this to fish for his compliments (or sympathy), not when she laughs through it all.

_ Still._

‘My sister Sansa not only has every Vogue magazine that features editorials of you, but she’s also set up a fundraiser only after you had done your own for the measles outbreak in the South, and my mother thinks you’re a genius. Even my bloody broody cousin Jon, well, he laughed at a joke you were quoted saying on the newsreel we both caught at my office the other day—the man hardly laughs at anything I say. And I...I value your opinions over any of the big wigs’ at parliament, any day. Even your father couldn’t buy that kind of influence, Marge.’

She covers her mouth, which might be itching to tease him again, but she can’t hide her eyes. They are simply watching him, and he’s almost pleased with himself to hear her silence rather than her snarky quipping. He even dares to think that he’s rendered her speechless.

But, in less time than it takes for him to feel impressive, she puffs out a small laugh when her hand moves, and she shifts to grip him around his arm. This is Margaery, after all, and she’s always been quite sure of herself.

_ Still._

He doubts that her lack of a quick reply means she has nothing mulling within that frightfully brilliant head of hers, but she smiles without being a tittering mess, and tucks and turns her chin in so that her cheek lies over his chest. Without her facing him, he assumes that the tugging of her skin is her smile widening when she only replies, ‘Tell me more about your family. How about your other siblings, can you tell me what they’re like?’

** _ tbc _ **


	3. III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Margaery and Robb’s new relationship develops through the election campaign. If he wins or loses, they start to define what they mean to each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the lovely comments and support for this fic. I’m so excited to end this story and share it with you. More ideas are coming to me, and hopefully will be posted soon enough :)

**MARGAERY**

‘Did you really think that I’d let you stay married to that beast?’ Her grandmother sounds as though she is stating a fact rather than asking her. She passes the clotted cream to Margaery’s side, next to the tall tower of tea sandwiches and berry-topped treats. 

Margaery forgets her tea cup completely, still reeling over reading the headlines of the newspaper in her hands. _Joffrey Lannister Arrested._

‘The poor girl will heal, but she’ll have scars not even time can fade. It’s no surprise that you were successful in taming Joffrey’s predilections for abuse, but this girl was—’

‘Grandmother…’ Margaery winces at the pictures in the paper of Arianne Martell’s face covered in purple and blue bruises, her mouth and left eye unnaturally protruding from her face from swelling. ‘How did they get these pictures? Did you...’

‘Don’t worry, darling, it can’t be traced to us,’ Olenna assures her, momentarily sipping into her cup before shooing her butler out of sight. ‘You understand, as I do, that this will put to rest all the scandals and rumours the Lannisters are spewing about us to the press for quite some time, and it will effectively get the Martell’s their justice for the poor girl.’

‘I can’t imagine how Arianne feels about seeing this.’ Margaery puts the papers down to ponder, brows nearly knitting together from frowning. ‘I met her once, she was fun, lively and smarter than somehow getting mixed up with Joffrey. I’m sure she can’t have wanted this to be published about herself, like some helpless—’

Olenna purses her lips at this. ‘You do understand, don’t you? Or can you still stomach doing what it takes to protect your family?’

Suddenly, the high tea afternoon her grandmother had invited her to, with the flowery wallpaper of her grandmother’s drawing room, golden finery all about them, and the pastries before her, takes a hold of Margaery. Her grandmother had trained her, in this very room for years, to be impassive and charming, to hold yourself to a standard that rivals anyone in the room, no matter your circumstances. 

She swallows thickly before agreeing, ‘I would do anything for our family, you know that.’

As perceptive as ever, Olenna simply replies, ‘Yes, I know. And I know that you are falling for a man who holds the same sentiments about his own family.’ 

Margaery opens and closes her mouth, realizing the truth in her words, words she had yet to admit to herself. She’s back to school with the true matron of their family all over again. 

‘Just do me a favour, my dear,’ she asks, peering at Margaery with the smirk she had passed down to her granddaughter, ‘do not continue to be as soft as these pastries will make you in time. You have always been my better, even when you were a little one I knew how cunning you were, but I can still teach you a few things. For instance, the Stark boy will appeal to the goodness in you, and that’s all fine and only natural, but you mustn’t forget who you are.’

‘Grand—’

The elder Tyrell holds her hand up impatiently, and looks as though she challenges her to tell her something contradictory. ‘Now that we’ve dealt with the lesser candidate for my granddaughter’s heart, tell me of Robb Stark instead, something I don’t know yet.’

Margaery tuts her, finally taking the jam and cheese sandwich from her plate. Only truly appeasing her grandmother when she sighs, and, with an exercised coolness, stores her complicated thoughts on their family’s ethics away. Olenna even smiles, pleased as Margaery confirms her observations by listing the ways Robb has shown his own shrewd capabilities in his political dealings.

  
  


* * *

He finally finds her, as if she were in hiding, at the edge of the balcony. Her grip on the railing tightens when he brings her usual drink. Annoyingly, he also brings a sympathetic look when she glances his way to accept the martini from him. She didn’t ask him to be pulled away from his prospective voters or the party he had brought her to. She certainly didn’t ask for him to be so nonchalant about her unannounced disappearance from his side in the first place.

But, of course, Robb starts, ‘You’re bored to tears.’

‘You got that from my many attempts to engage your voters in lively debate,’ she says, but does not cut her blatant joke with a laugh, instead she sips generously from her glass. 

She can’t tell if he follows her gaze beyond the balcony, gazing over King’s Landing’s skyline. However, somehow, she feels him watching her often as silence settles between them. 

Robb doesn’t push her to tell him why she’s not helping him bolster his public image, he doesn’t ask her to explain her distant behaviour since he picked her up from her apartment, nor does he demand her to apologize for leaving his side and his audience mid-story to find this private corner of the party. 

‘Margaery, why…’

She wants to tell him that she isn’t exactly bored. She wants to tell him that she’s not bothered at all by the fact that their current venue is one of Joffrey’s family hotels, and it helps that he’s not in attendance to this event. Most of all, she wants to just step away from prying eyes, especially when she has to really think and collect her thoughts, because this sometimes happens when she allows (or can’t help) herself to be nervous...

‘Why me, Marge?’ Robb finishes his thought. There isn’t anything suspicious about his query, but Margery takes her eyes off the speeding cars and neon lights below them to fully pay him attention. ‘Just before we started, you constantly talked about your father trying to marry you off to someone from Highgarden.’

The question doesn’t catch her off guard, but she takes her time to say, ‘It’s true, my father has been relentless with introductions, some even had potential, but I've always toyed with the idea of finding someone right from under his nose. Luckily, someone did catch my eye, someone with ambition as strong as mine.’ She leans into his touch when he comes to sit his hands at her waist from behind. She softens the frown he found her wearing. ‘My grandmother likes you, you know, which is impressive enough to keep you around.’

They share a laugh, until Robb presses, ‘What if I don’t win the vote, would this fantastic ride come screeching to a halt?’

She feels him press again, this time with a soft kiss to the nape of her neck. She finds a wide ledge to place her martini, realizing she isn’t thirsty for it after all. 

‘Regardless of winning or losing,’ she starts, and turns to cup the side of his jaw. ‘I could think of a number of ways that you may still need reminders to eat your cake, and enjoy yourself once and again.’

His habit to furrow his brows after her comments, the way they sometimes appear as if he is working out her intentions, is showing again. She wonders if he is always equal parts fascinated and frustrated by her. He draws out her own furrowed brows to ask her, ‘Have you ever been in love before?’

This is how Robb operates, whether he realizes it or not, inside of parliament and into his everyday life; he is direct and expects direct answers.

She obliges, ‘No, never.’ She thinks she can be direct with her questions too, but she already suspects, knows, that Jeyne was his first love. No amount of Jeyne lying and betraying him will change that, and Margaery tries to ignore the acute annoyance that peaks and wanes from thinking of another woman having a claim on Robb in this way.

She wonders what he might be thinking since he says nothing to reply to this, and she delays retrieving her hand still holding the side of his face, lost in her thoughts.

He leans into her touch this time, scratching her palm with his growing stubble, wondering again, ‘I can only imagine... Margaery in love would be a sight, don’t you think?’

‘Probably not as tragically embarrassing as you might be,’ she says, pinching his cheek.

He dips, with one hand anchoring her grip on his face, to gently kiss her. Breaking the quick, chaste contact, he says, ‘I’m sorry that I’m asking all these questions. I know we promised that we would keep it light and easy, and try to have fun with...this. But, I hope it’s okay to admit that I get nervous around you sometimes.’

The reflection of pinpricks of the street lights and the balcony’s fairy lights glimmer across his eyes, somehow making him look younger after this confession. 

He’s right, this—they were meant to be a fun excursion along his campaign run, and the positive boost to his public image was a convenient side effect from their coupling. She wasn’t meant to be comparing him to Joffrey, but there are so many differences. Joffrey never admitted vulnerability for one, but Robb does so effortlessly, and the bluest eyes she’s ever seen are still on her, drawing her in. 

It all makes her awkwardly shift her stance, moving about without reason, quirking her lips up to one side as she wraps her hands around his neck. ‘If I admit that you do the same for me, will you keep kissing me?’

He cocks a brow at her and it dawns on her what he came to see her about to begin with, so she relents, ‘I admit I ran away tonight, but it’s only because I thought the show I was putting on for everyone might make it seem like…’

‘Like you’re always putting on a show for everyone, for me?’

She nods, and she doesn’t know why he continues to surprise her since he’s always struck her as a man who knows more than he lets on. He must know that Margaery is someone who enjoys her socialite status, the ways she maintains it with her social circles and the haute couture image she flaunts. Still, Margaery is and isn’t these things all at once. The realization that it matters how he perceives this weighs heavily on her. 

‘Well, I know when you’re turning it on, Marge. I know that I have to do the same when it’s needed. But, I also like to think that when you talk me up to the press or to my colleagues, you believe in me anyways,’ he says this as if he settles the matter.

She nods again, biting her bottom lip, bracing herself. She pulls his neck closer, with his head tilting in response. With her heart thrumming in her chest, she stares intently at him to admit, ‘I felt nervous tonight, you make me nervous.’

This settles it too, she thinks, because he kisses her again, with kisses that deepen as much as they make them break into smiles.

* * *

At his campaign office, they all seem to be on pins and needles, waiting for the voting results to be displayed on the multiple screens that are currently broadcasting predictions and interviews with election analysts. Robb keeps her flush against his side, holding her hand. 

_ Robb Stark Wins the Northern Seat _

For a moment that seems to be suspended, while some yelp out from pure gut reaction, she watches his winning announcement reflected across his eyes like a marquee. He’s stalk still as if he isn’t reading the words correctly until it all comes rushing out in what sounds like disbelieving laughter, and his hand comes swiftly to stop himself and believe it.

There is ringing in her ears from huzzahs, flurries of streamers, Theon’s popped champagne, a battle of handshakes for his congratulations, and his youngest siblings nearly tackling him to the ground. Margaery’s congratulatory kiss is perfunctory and so is the embrace they give the press and photographers.

Then there’s that brightness in his expression again, the one that makes him seem younger as he lifts his youngest brother, Rickon, over his shoulders. It does not leave him easily tonight, not once. She decides she will sincerely miss it after he sobers later on. 

Alone in his office, after they make their late-night plans to celebrate, Robb grips her hand to stop her from leaving his side. ‘Can I get a real kiss?’

She lifts an arched brow, and deflects, ‘You have to tweet this victory first and remember to call your key investors. Frey seems to think you should be paying him a proper visit and dinner, according to your mother.’

‘Done and done. But, on the latter, you were the one that helped me see the sense in keeping him at a respectable distance after his transparent interest and investment into the campaign. I’ll invite him to my family’s home, on our terms, when I feel the time is right.’

‘Well, aside from that then...I already gave you one.’ She can’t help but tease him, biting away a creeping smile.

Finally, the elation in his bright eyes is obscured, pupils blown out, and he sobers at this, ‘Not like this.’ 

He kisses her deeply as if he were somehow deprived of her. It takes her by surprise, the force of his grip on her, the way she sways and almost trips along as he tugs her close to where he leans against his desk. This time, she is left blindly grasping for something to hold on to. 

* * *

They continue celebrations days after the election before he becomes completely consumed by his new position, at the family cottage.

It’s here, where all the Starks are in their element within the rustic walls of a multiple-generations-old log house and Robb and his father coming in from the woods smelling of pine and earth on a nightly basis, that she hears her grandmother nagging her internally again.

_ You still have your thorns, don’t you? _

‘Don’t dally, Margaery,’ Catelyn stirs her from drifting away from their current task of cooking a multiple course meal. ‘The cranberry compote will burn.’

Sansa gives her a look that makes Margaery try to stifle a fit of giggles as she continues to stir the sugary syrup with gusto. Catelyn bumps her daughter with her hip to get her to scoop the stuffing for the turkey, clearly exasperated with the pair of them. But, there is an unmistakable fondness in her weak frowns. 

The Starks are stern, with their bluntness and liking to simple (austere to Tyrell standards) tastes, but they are warm. Warm like the fires that Jon and Yigrette help kindle at the fireplace at night, and warm like the easy comradery that’s between Robb and Jon; you couldn’t tell that they had both campaigned for the same parliament seat. 

They are warm in greeting Loras and his new boyfriend Renly (Margaery takes full credit for knowing that they’d be better suited together and for their formal introduction) to this retreat as a last-minute request. Something Robb had arranged, knowing full well that it would please her to not feel so outnumbered by the Stark clan.

And even Arya’s dressing down of Margaery’s constant mistakes in the kitchen makes her belly ache from laughter.

Yes, she could concede to her grandmother, because she _is _affected by Robb. She will have to explain how it wasn’t probable at first, yet slowly it crept over her, and, in the end, it suddenly came over her all at once.

It seems, all at once, Robb is not a stranger to this feeling as they stay in one night, surrounded by a fortress of policy documents, analytics, and their laptops. She can see that he’s just as affected when he sighs, ‘I can’t believe you’re sacrificing your night to look at public engagement reports with me. I honestly love you.’

She would’ve missed those eight little letters, like he appears to have missed them, especially because of the casual tone he took by saying them through hands wearily rubbing his face. But, Margaery doesn’t miss a thing. Nor does she miss the realization of his confession coming back to him, appearing on his features as if he’s been walloped in the head while his mouth hangs open. 

‘Tragically embarrassing,’ comes her joke to recall their shared memory with a wide grin, which softens because, this time, she can’t stand to see him squirm for too long, ‘But, let’s not be coy about this, I love you too.’

Their fortress comes crashing down into ruins below them. 

Later, while having their afternoon tea, she will tell her grandmother that she can see it clearly when she never imagined seeing it before—a love and a life she chooses on her own. She can see Robb devoting himself to his office, while he solicits her advice in matters big and small, and sometimes she will provide the ‘thorns’ he does not realize he needs. She sees her contemporaries in a new light, like the dynasty politician Danaerys Targaryen making news by her bidding for power in government, and she seriously reflects on her own influence and where it might take her. She can also see events where their families might fully meet, where she will hide her smiles into her coffee mug while Sansa will no doubt make any attempts in lowering her voice to explain to Robb the necessity and symbolism of a Stark winter wedding rather than a summer one. _ Bless him_, Robb will turn crimson but surely indulge his sister, despite the fact that he hasn’t proposed yet.

* * *

Yet, Margaery has the decency to feign surprise when she finally sees the velvet box and its glittery contents for a second time, the one he had poorly hidden in his sock drawer of all places. _ Who hides a diamond ring in the bloody drawer you share with your girlfriend? _ At least, she doesn’t need to express a rehearsed reaction, as she melts her _yes, yes, yes _into kisses that answer Robb’s request for a winter wedding. 

** _end_ **


End file.
